The Gifted Realm: Academy - Volume 1

The Gifted Realm: Academy - Reference Guide

Warning: There are spoilers as to what happened in the first Gifted Realm series in this guide. Look for the ** alerts throughout if you don’t want to know what happened in the first series.

The Gifted Realm-

The Realm is a population of people that live among us unnoticed. They are human beings but are capable of harnessing the energy of things around them. For example, they could pull light from a lamp, the power from a battery, or summon the energy from the air around them, manipulate it and use it as they wish.

Each Gifted person has a Predilect, a particular kind of energy they are most skilled at using.

The Realm is governed by a National Governing Board in Washington D.C. The Governing Board and all Governing offices reside in the top floor of the Pentagon. Each state also has a State Governing Board.

Predilect – Dan is a double predilect. This is rather rare and means that his Gifted energy runs in double bands where other Gifted people’s runs in a single band. He is an Ioses Shield (protector) and also a Visium predilect meaning he has the ability to hone in on the energy of information and quickly figure out where and why the energy is flowing. Both of his predilects make him an incredibly powerful officer.

Backstory – At the age of 22, Dan’s fiancée, Amelia, who was also his childhood sweetheart, was kidnapped and murdered by Dominic Wretchkinsides. She was sought out because Dan had joined the Elite Iodex squadron after he graduated from Venton Gifted Academy.

Blaming himself for Amelia’s murder, Dan spent every waking moment for a decade hunting down Wretchkinsides and his criminal organization The Interfeci. He was appointed Chief Officer of Elite Iodex (the highest crime fighting position available within The Realm.) Vengence drove him until he met Fionna Styler.

Fionna showed him that he could always hold Amelia in his heart. She never asked him to stop loving Amelia but taught him that he could love her as well.

**Spoilers**

Dan ultimately dismantles the Interfeci organization piece by piece and man by man. When Wretchkinsides kidnaps an ex-girlfriend of Dan’s, there is a final takedown between Iodex and The Interfeci.

Terrified that Dan is going to get himself killed in the takedown, Fionna goes to the strip club where Dan has located Wretchkinsides to tell him that she is pregnant with his child. Fionna is shot during the takedown and loses the baby. Dan pulls the life-force from Wretchkinsides (called summoning black) drawing the energy from Wretchkinsides’ body and killing him. This is murder in The Gifted Realm and Dan should have served a life sentence for this.

Given all that Wretchkinsides had taken from Dan, Crown Governor Stephen Haydenshire pardons Dan with the understanding that Dan will resign from Iodex.

Dan and Fionna marry and adopt Aida whose parents were killed by The Interfeci when she was a toddler. Fionna finds out a few weeks after the adoption that she is expecting again.

Fionna Vindico

Full Name: Fionna Kalani Halia Styler Vindico

Age: 30

Married: Dan Vindico

Child: Aida Hanai Vindico age 7 (adopted from Brazil)

Child: Halia Elisabeth Amelia Vindico

Predilect: Fionna is an Auxiliary Receiver. She is uncommonly powerful. Most Receivers are able to feel and understand the energy of other Gifted individuals who they are touching or are very close to. Fionna can feel the emotions of both Gifted and Non-Gifted people without touching them. Her powers extend a wide radius. The only time she is unable to absorb the emotions around her is when she is inside a shield as powerful as Dan’s.

Receivers are capable of taking on the emotions of others and helping them change negative emotions to more positive ones. This is one of the ways she helps Dan heal.

Backstory: Born and raised to the age of 13 on the island of Kauai (Hawaii), Fionna’s abundant power comes from the energy of her island. Being away from Kauai weakens her slightly. Dan and Fionna make trips to Kauai often for her to be restored.

When Fionna was 13, her mother drowned. Angry at the island and the universe in general, her father took Fionna from all she’d ever known. He moved them to Texas and then to D.C. for Fionna’s Gifted education. She attended Venton Gifted Academy with Dan, but they did not fall in love until much later.

After graduation, Fionna was drafted to Professional Summation (a game played by Gifted people involving the manipulation of energy) to play for the Arlington Angels, the only all-female Summation team.

Before her pregnancy, Fionna was Receiver of the Realm meaning she was the most talented Receiver in professional Summation.

**Spoilers**

Fionna had a long-time crush on Dan dating back to them attending Venton together. Having exceptional abilities with emotions, she sensed when Dan was ready for a relationship (ten years after Amelia’s death.) She longed only to make him whole again, but knew they would ultimately fall in love.

With the help of her best friend, Garrett Haydenshire, they worked up a plan. She and Garrett would pretend to be dating as a cover for her and Dan’s relationship to keep Wretchkinsides from targeting Fionna the way he’d targeted Amelia.

Fionna ended up pregnant with Dan’s baby while their relationship still had to be kept hidden to keep her safe.

Challengers in Professional Summation cannot be pregnant as the energy shield (the aegis) that covers the playing field during challenges is harmful to fetuses.

Knowing she’s going to have to resign but having no idea how they’d manage to keep their relationship a secret, Fionna goes to the strip club where Dan has located Wretchkinsides in the final takedown to tell him that she is pregnant with his child. Fionna is shot during the takedown and loses the baby.

To help her heal and recover, Dan and Fionna go to Kauai. The healing they both receive there on her family’s farm makes both of them vow to spend each summer on Kauai.

Garrett Haydenshire

Full Name: Garrett Alexander Haydenshire

Age: 31

Not married

No children

Predilect: Garrett is an Ioses Shield and served as Dan’s second in command on the Elite Iodex Squadron.

Backstory: Second child of Crown Governor Stephen Haydenshire and Lillian Haydenshire, Garrett is a troublemaker with a dark past that we will learn about in The Academy series. He is a lover but can quickly become a fighter if someone he loves is threatened. Willing to do anything for his family and his friends, Garrett often feels alone.

Best friends with Fionna since she started at Venton Academy he often seeks her out as Fionna understands him more than anyone else.

Garrett and his older brother Will grew up with Dan Vindico. They’ve all been friends since early childhood. Garrett saved Dan’s life on more than one occasion and ultimately got Dan and Fionna together.

Cast of Characters (secondary)

Logan Haydenshire

Age: 23

Married: Adeline Haydenshire

No children

Predilect: Logan is an Ioses Shield just like his big brother Garrett

Backstory: Logan’s older brother Cal was killed by The Interfeci organization. Desperate to find a place both within his large family and in The Realm, Logan joins Iodex to avenge Cal.

He met Adeline Parker at Venton Academy, fell in love, and married her after graduation.

Adeline Haydenshire

Full Name: Adeline Marie Parker Haydenshire

Age: 23

Married: Logan Haydenshire

No children

Predilect: Valeduto Healer

Adeline becomes a Gifted OBGYN. She kept Fionna alive after her gunshot wound and is currently taking care of Fionna during her second pregnancy.

Landon Portwood

Age: 31

Married: Julie Portwood

No children

Predilect: Ioses Shield

Portwood takes over as Chief of Iodex after Dan resigns.

Arthur Vindico

Age: 57

Married: Marion Vindico

Children: Dan, Kara, Meredith, and Lindley

Predilect: Arthur is an Adminis predilect making him an outstanding Governor on the National Board. He serves directly under Stephen Haydenshire, the Crown Governor and is in charge of all Gifted schools in the nation.

Predilect: Stephen is an Adminis predilect making him an outstanding Crown Governor, the leader of the United States Gifted population.

Rainer Lawson

Age: 23

Married: Emily (Haydenshire) Lawson

No children

Predilect: Rainer is an Ioses Shield and is currently serving on the Elite Iodex Squadron. He was recruited out of Venton by Dan Vindico.

Backstory: Rainer’s father, Joseph, and his mother, Maggie, were best friends of Stephen and Lillian Haydenshire. They all worked together to overthrow a corrupt Governing board long before Rainer was born. Joseph became Crown Governor but was ultimately assassinated by The Interfeci. His wife was also killed.

Emily (Haydenshire) Lawson

Age: 22

Married: Rainer Lawson

No children

Predilect: Emily is an Auxiliary Receiver just like Fionna. She challenges professionally for The Arlington Angels as their Junior Receiver. Not as powerful as Fionna, she still packs quite a punch when someone she loves is threatened.

Predilects-

There are nine Gifted Predilects.

Here are the ones you need to know for now

Ioses: Shields – They have the ability to summon energy around them and form a physical energy barrier between themselves and the world around them. They can also allow other people inside the barrier and keep them safe as well. Naturally overprotective, a shield seeks to protect at all cost.

Auxiliary: Receivers – Able to feel all emotional energy around them Receivers are also very adept at changing energy forms from one kind of energy to another very quickly. Faster than any other predilect. Inside an Ioses shield is the only time a Receiver cannot feel the emotional energy around them.

Here are the others-

Adminis: Excellent at governing, planning, and thinking on a large scale

Valeduto: Healers – generally doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals as they have the ability to physically heal other Gifted people

Occamy: Gifted with creative energies

Scholera: Gifted with energies to help people understand. They are most often teachers

Duco: Gifted with energy to calculate and able to see and understand the energy in money and numbers

Visverees: Gifted with almost impenetrable energy, they are forces to be reckoned with and often work in law enforcement, in the Gifted Armed Services, as fire fighters, and as EMT’s

Visium: Gifted with the powerful energies to observe and understand even when those around them do not. When others can answer when, where, and how, Visium predilects are able to understand why an event occurred and what might happen next.

This guide will be available for each episode of The Gifted Realm: Academy but it’s not likely that you’ll need it. I try to explain things as we go. Feel free to comment to ask questions about any of the episodes as we go as well.